As the global population continues to grow, the population density of cities and suburban areas increases accordingly. This has led to an associated proliferation in vehicular traffic congestion on highways and roads. Drivers and passengers subjected to traffic jams, congestion, and delays often grow frustrated and angry, leading to episodes of “road rage.” Furthermore, every additional minute or hour spent in traffic is a minute or hour that these individuals cannot spend with their families or at leisure activities.
Traffic jams are deleterious not only to the individuals experiencing them, but to society as a whole. Time spent in traffic is often idle time in which little or nothing beneficial or productive is accomplished. Additionally, the longer it takes vehicles to get from one place to another, the more these vehicles pollute the environment, while using fuel that depletes already diminished natural resources. Thus, it is in the best interest of all for traffic congestion to be reduced.
In order to decrease traffic congestion, it is important to first be able to accurately measure traffic congestion. However, many attempts to do so, such as traffic helicopters and planes, traffic cameras, or other forms of traffic metering or measurement, tend to be either expensive, inexact, or both.
Proposals have been made to estimate traffic congestion on a road from the number of wireless communication devices (WCDs) within wireless coverage areas that encompass at least a section of the road. The assumption underlying this sort of technique is that WCDs, such as cellular phones, are so prevalent that it is likely that each vehicle on a road contains at least one. However these techniques suffer the problem of differentiating between WCDs that are actually in, on, or otherwise associated with vehicles that are in motion on the road, and WCDs that are not on the road or not in motion. Thus, it is desirable to provide a means for reasonably accurate estimation of vehicular traffic characteristics on a road, using data gathered from WCDs.